Rumor: Final Fantasy Versus XIII Is Dead

[Runa216]

DigitalDevilSummoner said:

Runa216 said:

Being a gamble and being ambitious are NOT The same things.  There's nothing more to it than that. You know how everyone complained about Dragon Age II being simpler and more boring in spite of it being more action packed?  same deal.  Making a game simpler but prettier is not ambitious, even if the game series has been known for complexity and depth.  Simply changing course and trying something new does not mean it's ambitious.  yes they wanted lots of sales...but they ALWAYS want lots of sales, there's nothing special or outstanding about XIII aside from its admittedly good (if generic and uninspired) graphics.

I'm a little dissapointed at how stubornly some people simply want to hate this game.

...

Trust me, I don't WANT to hate anything, but it's hard not to hate Final Fantasy XIII.  When I go down my list of things that a game needs to be good, it fails almost everywhere. While its graphics were beautiful and its soundtrack was good, it failed everywhere else.  The characters were shallow and uninteresting with a completely forgettable villain, the stoy looked like it had potential but ended up being boring and simple, not to mention if you wanted 90% of the story you needed to scour through the datalogs to understand the depth of it (which is shoddy storytelling.)  Normally, depth like that is unearthed through exploration and sidequests, but here the game is so restrictively linear that there is no ability to deviate from the path it set you on save one small part of the game (chapter 11 of 13).  

On top of all this, the gameplay is fundamentally flawed in many ways.  yeah, it 'works', but its very poorly implemented and the battle system frankly sucks, a faster paced version of FFXII's battle system that sacrifices all the depth and player control in lieu of action and speed.  another instance where Final Fantasy XIII prefers style over substance. 

How can you not hate that after 20 years of amazing games?  how can you not hate that when they keep doing more with the most hated game in the series but are doing apparently nothing to bring the games people REALLY want (Kingdom Hearts III,vsXIII, VII remake, etc).  it's perfectly okay to hate a game when you know THAT'S the game the company will be focusing on as opposed to other, good stuff.  if XIII was just a fluke and Square Enix went back to the quality FF games of yesteryear, I'd simply ignore it and move on, burying it in my past as I would any bad memory, but the fact that it seems to be the direction they're heading, I have every right to hate it, for it was the game that set my favorite series on a path I hate, and the prospect of never getting another final fantasy game I like is a rather daunting and depressing thought.  

so yes, I have every right to hate Final Fantasy XIII for ruining a franchise I love.